


Ars(e) Poetica

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Attempt at Humor, First Time, Hangover, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Poetry Without Plot, Post-Drinking Binge, Sestina, Writing on the Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:26:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Watson wakes up in Oslo.PWP. Holmes/Watson. First time. An ars poetica is a poem that explains the art of poetry.The exciting conclusion toOn the Boat to Norway,Still on the Boat to Norway, andDrunk on the Boat to Norway!





	Ars(e) Poetica

I surfaced from oblivion secure in the knowledge that not only was I dead but that at some point in the recent past, a small creature, one whose native home was, apparently, the drains, had crawled into my mouth and breathed its last.

A pair of legs, human legs, were before me. They were not mine. The limbs were too thin and the hair that adorned them too dark and sparse.

A body beside me, then.

A graveyard? No soil. A tomb? No rock.

Hell, then. That would explain my torment.

There was a sound. Unintelligible.

The unintelligible sound was echoed with an upward lilt upon the final syllable, which suggested an interrogative quality.

Throbbing with pain and having no answer to any question that might be posed, I sank back into abyss.

The legs. Same as before. Moving. Speaking.

“Watson?”

The voice hit home a full moment before the word did.

Holmes.

And if there was Holmes, there would be a Watson.

And that would be me.

A briny wave of soft emotion crested and crashed in my chest.

How merciful was Providence!

Holmes and I had been buried together. We were serving our sentence in the next life together.

“Watson!”

Even from the grave, a faithful companion stirs at the call of its master. I made to reply, but pain stalled me.

I raised a dead hand to my dead jaw, which was sending lively, bloodthirsty, dagger-wielding messengers up the side of my dead face to my dead temples.

Dead temples to dead gods. Were there any other kind?

With lips barely parted, I squeaked. “Hell?”

A gruff chuckle. “No. Oslo.”

In life, Holmes knew all kinds of languages, modern and ancient.

Oslo must be Inferno.

Oslo.

Oslo.

I rolled the word ‘round my vacant cranium like a marble.

The legs disappeared.

Panicked, I shifted.

Don’t leave me!

The retreating figure could be none other than Sherlock Holmes, but he was nude! He was nude, save for a huge, dark bruise which covered his back from shoulder blades to waist where it tapered into a V and disappeared into the cleft of his buttocks.

Holmes vanished through a threshold, but soon returned swathed in a scarlet silk dressing gown. He carried a glass of water. He paused at a wash basin, then neared me.

“Water in hell?” I asked in my own language, which was harsh croak.

“We are not in hell, Watson,” Holmes replied as if speaking to a child, that is, as adults usually speak to children, Holmes himself usually spoke to children quite plainly, giving orders and soliciting information, as he would any diminutive costermonger.

“We are alive and in Oslo,” he continued. “Oslo is the capital city of the country of Norway.” Now his tone was that of a school mistress, a role, which in life, I noted with academic interest, Holmes rarely ever pretended to be. I wondered why.

Oslo or not, I quickly realised that Holmes and I could not very well be in hell because the cold, wet cloth gliding ‘cross my face was too divinely comforting. It moved to my neck, my ears, the ridge of my shoulders. I sighed and leaned into its caress.

I was in drawers alone, I realised.

Then I met Holmes’s gaze. His eyes were as soft as grey gossamer, his voice as gentle as shadow.

“Rinse your mouth first, Watson. You might not be ready to swallow.”

A rim of the glass was brought to my lips. I sipped and spat, expelling a portion of the drain-dwelling creature’s carcass into the porcelain vessel that Holmes proffered.  

My gut clenched. I retched, silently, fruitlessly.

“I’m dead!” I wailed.

“Do you remember nothing? Don’t shake your head. It will hurt.”

“No.”

Holmes grunted and sat beside me.

I quickly noted that I was not in a grave or a tomb, but rather a canopied bed of dark wood. It was a resting place which, had I been in any state other than the one in which I was in, I would probably have found charming, enchanting, even. How they did things in Oslo!

Holmes wiped my mouth with another cloth. That felt good, too.

Then he cleared his throat and delivered a summary that sounded slightly rehearsed.

“With the Black Peter case resolved, I proposed a holiday in Norway. You accepted the invitation. On the boat, you partook of the local spirit, that is, aquavit. You composed an ode in my honour, in a Norse form, I might add, and recited it aloud in the boat galley. Then we took some air. On deck, you, at very long last, noted that my,” Holmes paused, “regard for you was, perhaps, not exclusively fraternal. I fled like a coward and composed a bit of verse that, though trite, nevertheless summarised my position. I thrust the note into your hand and fled again.”

The cloth disappeared, and I was left with only the tender caress of Holmes’s voice.

“You found me in the galley, declared my sentiment to be reciprocated, and we proceeded to celebrate the union of two hearts by consuming ample quantity of aquavit whilst engaging in a sort of good-natured duel of slightly ridiculous, highly suggestive verse.”

“But why am I…?” I raised a weak hand. Nothing in Holmes’s recounting hinted at my wretched state.

“Drink,” said Holmes.

“But Holmes…!” I whined in protest, then grimaced in pain. I’d drank too much before, of course, but had never suffered so, nothing even close to this awfulness.

“Aquavit,” answered Holmes with a shrug as he brought the glass of water before my eyes. “More?”

I nodded once, a minute gesture to avoid smashing my fragile brain matter against the wall of my skull.

The glass was brought to my lips once more. This time, I sipped slowly with long pauses between draughts to reassure myself that the offering would not be immediately purged.

“You’d already consumed a certain portion of aquavit before we drank together,” continued Holmes. “And it may be insulting your intelligence to point out that your rate of consumption far outpaced my own. When the boat docked, I suspended my imbibing, the better to deal with our passports and our trunks and our transport to this fine establishment, but you filled your flask with the remainder of the bottle and continued a private revelry.”

I groaned at my present state and past foolishness. Then I let my eyes wander ‘round the room.

“It’s gorgeous,” I said of spacious sleeping chamber and the sliver of the adjoining room visible through the open door.

“Yes, and I must confess it is more opulent than what I arranged for. When we arrived, we discovered there’d been a misunderstanding with the booking. Your indignation was,” I heard the smirk, “voluble. You informed the proprietor, and perhaps much of the well-hearing public within a mile radius, of my name and my international reputation. Your ire was only assuaged when we were afforded the use of the lone suite readily available, one which is usually reserved for the newly-married. We have it for next three days, by the way.”

I groaned. “I made an arse of myself, did I? Please compose a list of those to whom I owe apologies, Holmes. Once I’m restored to the living, I shall set about the _mea culpas_.”

As Holmes chuckled, shame warmed my cheeks and caused the throbbing of the dead gods in my dead temples sit up and do a peasant-like stomping dancing behind my eye sockets.

My gut clenched once more.

I had to admire Holmes’s reflexes. He was quick off the mark with the porcelain pot when the retching re-commenced.

After a rather disgusting display, I fell back on the bed, a husk of a man.

“Holmes, when did you sustain your injury?” I panted, when speech finally returned.

“Injury?”

“The bruise on your back.”

He laughed. “Oh, Watson. You don’t recognise your own handiwork?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” I moaned. I was as lowly as the worm that was currently feasting on my intestines! “I cannot believe that even in the worst of states, I struck you!”

“It’s not an injury, Watson, but it is a mark and all yours.”

The last he stated with a pride that I did not comprehend, then he stood and turned. The scarlet silk fell to far below his waist.

“Dear God,” I breathed and sat up, head and intestines and the rest of my wretched corpus be damned.

It wasn’t abuse on the skin— _it was writing_.

And writing in my small, cramped hand, of that there was no doubt.

“Dear God,” I repeated.

> **_laid bare, writ plane, my ars poetica_ **
> 
> **_in ink, on skin, a testament made flesh_ **
> 
> **_like a tailor, like a god, this word-smith_ **
> 
> **_crafts verse, like wrought beast, like pair of trousers._ **
> 
> **_snipped pattern. shaped form. textured hue. rent sound._ **
> 
> **_catholic yet novel. sense through metaphor._ **
> 
> ****
> 
> **_here in my hands, the taboo metaphor_ **
> 
> **_pendant stanzas that parse poetica_ **
> 
> **_into two globes. rendering silent sound,_ **
> 
> **_beauty flows from form, and thus, your braid flesh_ **
> 
> **_depends upon structured wear of trousers_ **
> 
> **_to draw veneration from oft-stirred smith_ **
> 
> ****
> 
> **_study of enjambing cleft ungird smith_ **
> 
> **_kneadful worship extends due metaphor_ **
> 
> **_humble lines beyond the care of trousers_ **
> 
> **_score without tune is sparse poetica_ **
> 
> **_and thus, it is with your warm, un-staid flesh,_ **
> 
> **_word dwelt amongst is shadow sans spent sound._ **
> 
> ****
> 
> **_oh, the lusty joy at a slap-sent sound_ **
> 
> **_the rat-a-tat drum of song-of-bird smith_ **
> 
> **_erotic symphony of hand-played flesh_ **
> 
> **_divine instrument a deux metaphor_ **
> 
> **_percussive would be farce poetica_ **
> 
> **_alone, oh, be gone, snare of trousers_ **
> 
> ****
> 
> **_sibilant sigh like swish-swear of trousers_ **
> 
> **_falling. Lips pressed to flesh-tent sound_ **
> 
> **_from flutes, gross and fine, tarse poetica_ **
> 
> **_eschewed by water-of-life slurred smith_ **
> 
> **_in favour of trah-lah-do metaphor,_ **
> 
> **_the groan-moan, lust-intoned notes of splayed flesh_ **
> 
> ****
> 
> **_devoid of truth verse is but un-weighed flesh_ **
> 
> **_buttons that fail in repair of trousers_ **
> 
> **_wit is the ‘oh, yes, me, too’ metaphor_ **
> 
> **_and thus, ‘tis with lady form and gent sound_ **
> 
> **_writ bare, laid plain, yours in-deed-and-word smith_ **
> 
> **_prithee bear this, my ars poetica_ **
> 
> ****
> 
> **_for yours, the sense that trousers love-struck smith_ **
> 
> **_yours, the form and flesh, yours the sound_ **
> 
> **_yours the metaphor,_ **
> 
> **_yours the_ **
> 
> **_arse_ **
> 
> **_p_ **
> 
> **_o_ **
> 
> **_e_ **
> 
> **_t_ **
> 
> **_i_ **
> 
> **_c_ **
> 
>  

“Dear God,” I said for the third time.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed by the time I finished reading. The last word trailed into the cleft of Holmes’s buttocks, the final letter completely hidden from view.

Holmes raised the dressing gown, and I slumped forward, clinging to him by the silk loops and sash at his waist.

“It is only ink, isn’t it? I mean, it will wash?” I asked plaintively.

“Yes,” he reassured me. “With time and scrubbing, it will disappear—but not before I record it for posterity. I have, of course, already committed it to memory.”

“Oh, no, Holmes!” I pressed my face to his lower back and circled my arms around his waist. “It’s…it’s…well, it doesn’t even rhyme!”

“It’s a sestina, my dear man, a form that has its origins in 12th century French troubadours.”

“I know what a sestina is, Holmes, but why in heavens would I—?”

“Well, I think the verse speaks for itself. You were in the grip of strong emotion.”

He now sounded hurt. The horror of what must have actually happened rose up in my chest.

“Holmes, please don’t excuse my behaviour. You say that you were clearer of mind than I was, but you could not possibly have been in a sober state to fully comprehend and agree to this. If I coerced you, or,” I choked on the word, “force my horrid penmanship upon you—”

“Watson, I never get your limits—”

“Nor do I,” I confessed, undone by the revelation of my own depravity. To do that to the man I purported to love! My current state of decomposition was not cruel enough punishment. I was considering throwing myself to the floor, or even out the nearest window, when Holmes’s voice cut through my despair.

“—to be flagellating yourself over a perceived crime against my virtue and person whilst giving my prick a most deliciously profane frigging.”

I gasped.

Of course, he was right. Of course, when my hand had wound ‘round him, it had sought his sex, and, of course, upon finding it, had shown it proper regard, and of course, upon feeling it respond to that regard, continued, with augmented vigour, the ministration—

“Oh, Holmes!”

Holmes covered my hand with his just as I was about to wrench it away and then guided it, up and down. I cupped the bulge, and it hardened beneath my touch.

“It was no violation, Watson,” said Holmes. “I even aided you, providing you with the word ‘tarse,’ an Old English word for phallus, and you see, there is some rhyme to it, unexpected rhyme, perhaps, irregular, even, and there is a certain beauty and craft in that. I think, well, I think it’s quite marvelous.”

“Truly?” I had to hear it again. I had to.

“I swear on anything you hold holy, including what you’re holding at this moment.”

Shame lifted like a fog, and I gently squeezed Holmes’s prick through the red silk. For my effort, I was rewarded by a low, throaty moan.

“Watson.”

“Holmes, when I finished, did I…?” I bent my head and nosed his cleft.

“Yes,” he whispered. “For quite some time. It was,” his voice faltered, “extraordinary, both for its intimacy and the physical sensations produced.”

“Ah.” That explained the more puzzling part of my condition. I lowered my mouth so that he might feel my hot breath on his skin through the silk. “I was bloody determined, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, you were, uh, quite single-minded. I had to take myself in hand. Your hands were otherwise occupied, delightfully so. You went on and on, Watson, driving me to an ecstasy that bordered on madness.”

Pity I couldn’t remember.

I twisted Holmes ‘round in my hands and he let the dressing gown fall to the floor.

The pain as I lowered my jaw and welcomed his prick into my oral cavity might have been blinding if my eyes were not already pinched shut. I kneaded his buttocks firmly and unceasingly, allowing a single dry fingertip to brush his rim as I pulled him to me.

“Watson, Watson, Watson…”

With the first shallow thrust, a bit of memory returned. A fragment of that chant of my name which I’d also heard the night before.

Holmes rocked into me, feeding me his prick over and over, and with every spread of my lips, I sucked harder and remembered more.

His tarse poetica, as he so absurdly taught me, was the fount and I was its supplicant, seeking wisdom, offering adoration.

Two of my fingertips were soon teasing Holmes’s rim, causing his posterior to wriggle and squirm in a whorish fashion. His front, however, was all punter, making rough use of my much-abused mouth without a shred of concern. His hands were resting on my head, rubbing my temples, perhaps alms to the dead gods to withhold their smiting for just a bit longer.

I, for my part, derived the greatest pleasure from the weight of Holmes’s plump arse in my hands.

His body tensed, I gave one final squeeze, and he one final thrust.

Tears streamed down my eyes as he spent himself with a choking whimper. I withdrew at once and fell back on the bed.

There was cloth at my mouth. I sputtered and spat and buried my pain and undoing and weakness in the small square of damp fabric.

“Watson, Watson, you must know,” Holmes pleaded. “Last night, I meant to reciprocate in any and every way you desired, but when I’d finished cleaning myself and returned to the bed, you’d already succumbed to a sleep from which you would not be roused and now, God, I’m a proper fool!”

I cracked one eye and watched him turn away and fastidiously restore the dressing gown to his frame. His head was bent, and his expression as pained as my own, his discomfiture being the self-reproaching kind and mine the sort that makes one long for the guillotine and an aristocratic bloodline.

“Holmes,” I gurgled.

He cast a single, brief glance in my direction. But not at my face.

Ah.

He’d taken my lack of erection for lack of desire.

“Holmes,” I said, forcibly squeezing the air out of my lungs and moving my lips the barest minimum, “I’m ill. I’ve another set of vice entirely when I’m well, or don’t you remember? I require a wash and a shave and several gallons of water. I’ll need a dose or two of medicine from my bag and perhaps, eventually, a bit of consommé and bread.”

“You didn’t eat much yesterday,” admitted Holmes, almost absent-mindedly, though I knew his mind was never, ever absent. Then he brightened. “Then you will allow me to ravish you?”

“Like a concubine,” I said with a wink.

He nodded and gave a half-smile. “Watson, this,” he made a gesture to indicate his back, “is lovely, thank you.”

I gathered up all my strength and pushed the pain down into the deepest recesses of my worthless corpse in order to deliver my reply in the clear, straight, calm expression of a man who know what he’s about.

“I adore you, Holmes. And I’ll shout it to a galley full of drunks, and I’ll carve it on your skin, and I’ll write it down in black and white for all the world to read.”

His eyes shone. He moved toward the bed and slid his hands beneath my torso. I clung to him, like a child, arms wrapped ‘round his neck, and he lifted me up, also like a child.

“You are poetry, Watson,” he whispered.

My head hung over the ridge of his shoulder. I looked down at the writing on the plain and the valley which divided the two pale hills beyond and said,

“And so’s your arse.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
